His voice died away. . . . Again he was looking at the house and the sparkling lawn.
"To lose this . . . to let it go—— After all these years."
There was a long silence. Only the doves cooing from the gay-tiled roof seemed to be the voice, crooning and satisfied of the summer afternoon.
"And that," said Duncombe, suddenly waking from his reverie, "is another idea that I have had. I feel as though you are going to be of importance in your new generation and that you will have influence. Even though I shall lose this place I shall be able to continue it in a way, perhaps, if I can make you feel that the past is not dead, that it must go on with its beauty and pathos influencing, interpenetrating the present. You young ones will have the world to do with as you please. Our time is done. But don't think that you can begin the world again as though nothing had ever happened before. There is all that loveliness, that beauty, longing to be used. The lessons that you are to learn are the very same lessons that generation after generation has learnt before you. Take the past which is beseeching you not to desert it and let it mingle with the present. Don't let modern cleverness make you contemptuous of all that has gone before you. They were as clever as you in their own generation. This beauty, this history, this love that has sunk into these walls and strengthened these trees, carry these on with you as your companions. . . . I love it so . . . and I have to leave it. To know that it will go to strangers . . ."
Henry said: "I'll never forget this place. It will influence all my life."
"Well, then," Duncombe shook his head almost impatiently, "I've done enough preaching . . . nonsense perhaps. It seems to me now important. Soon, if the pain returns, only that will matter."
They sat for a long time in silence. The shadows of the trees spread like water across the lawn. The corners of the garden were purple shaded.
"God! Is there a God, do you think, Henry?"
"Yes," he answered. "I think there is One, but of what kind He is I don't know."